Festival of Speed gets in gear with Moving Motor Show

Simon Toft

Tens of thousands of car fans are enjoying the first day of the Goodwood Festival of Speed after the event roared off the startline with the Moving Motor Show.

Traffic queues built up on the A27 and around Chichester as people converged on Lord March’s West Sussex estate for the annual celebration of all things automotive.

The Moving Motor Show gives potential buyers the chance to get behind the wheel of latest models from Fords to Ferraris and follow in the tyre tracks of legends during a test drive using the famous Goodwood hillclimb course.

Meanwhile there’s also action overhead as the Red Arrows are scheduled to put on a spectacular display in the skies above West Sussex at 12.30pm - and they’re due back again tomorrow at 12.15pm.

A sell-out crowd of up to 200,000 are looking forward to plenty of track thrills from tomorrow to Sunday and getting up close to an array of supercars and superstars.

Topping the bill are three-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, who is leading the world championship after last weekend’s European Grand Prix at Baku, Azerbaijan.

Hamilton will take the wheel of a 2014 Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid tomorrow, with Rosberg driving the same new generation turbo on Sunday.

This year’s featured marque is BMW, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary. Last night thunder and lightning accompanied fireworks and lasers as a special sculpture outside Goodwood House was unveiled.

Epitomising this year’s Festival of Speed theme, Full Throttle – The Endless Pursuit of Power, it features three giant steel arms holding the legendary BMW 328 Mille Miglia Roadster, a Gordon Murray-designed

Brabham-BMW BT52 F1 car and the Le Mans-winning BMW V12 LMR.

Keep up to date with festival news here and see reports and pictures in The News